Eleanor Berry - Author of 'Cap'n Bob and me: The Robert Maxwell I knew.'
Eleanor Berry

Robert Maxwell, a disgruntled Yorkshireman and Eleanor Berry

I came into Bob’s office one morning. He had a man in there with him.. I knew who the man was but I didn’t speak to him because I did not like the look of him. I’ll hand it to him that this was not his fault, however, but I definitely wished to avoid any verbal exchange with him.

Bob pointed at him, abruptly, using his thumb,

"Do you know who this man is?" he asked

The atmosphere in the room made me nervous. I wanted the man to go away. I never speak gently or quietly when I get nervous. I bark,

"I haven’t the faintest idea who he is." I shouted. "Does he work in your garden?"

Bob laughed and turned to the man.

"She doesn’t mean to be offensive. She’s just very shy"

The man was irritated and spoke with a heavy Yorkshire accent.

"Shoy? Shoy? Bluddy Abroopt, I’d say!"

It was Arthur Scargill.


Robert Maxwell wins challenging battle to get Eleanor Berry out of bed in the mornings

I lived with Robert Maxwell for a one year. For a man of his short fuse, he bore my incommoding habits stoically and patiently.

During one of the General Election campaigns, everyone moved into the Wharf House, overlooking a stagnant canal near Bob’s Buckingham campaign offices.

I was not all that industrious and spent the mornings in bed, sleeping. Ocassionally, I was stirred by the sound of vigilant campaigners, calling "Harold and Bob Will Finish the Job" over loudhailers.

The Maxwells had an Irish cleaning woman. I think her name was Mrs Mock. I was unaware at the time that Bob spent a lot of the mornings in the house.

One morning, I was rumbled. From 8.00 onwards, I was woken at fifteen minute intervals by Mrs Mock’s shrill Irish accent.

"Mr Maxwell says it’s high time you were hopping out of your bed. He thinks you’ve been there quite long enough."

I ignored all her visits. At 12.30 the great man himself rattled into the bedroom. He came up to me and sat on his haunches like a cop asking a motorist whether he has been drinking. He leant forwards, his face less than a foot away from mine. He pointed vehemently, first at me, then at the ceiling. For some reason, I suddenly thought of the film 'A Clockwork Orange ' which I had recently seen. A quotation from it came straight into my head.

"Leave us be and I'll be right as dodgers this after!" I said, jauntily. He appeared irritated.

"You! Up!" he shouted.

I knew the game was up for me. I obeyed. After that he made me sleep on a camp bed in his study.

This was not unpleasant, however, I woke up very early each morning because the bed was so narrow.

I used to watch him working at his desk, without his knowledge. He was sitting in profile. He often wore his tie loosened at the neck when he worked alone at a desk. This was something which set my blood on fire. I loved to lie there and look at him and the thing which excited me most was the fact that he had no idea that he was being watched.

The experience was similar to the thrill of a nature-watch observer, looking at a fierce wild animal which thinks it is alone.

A Clockwork Orange, eventually banned by its own creator, Stanley Kubrick.


Maxwell, Kevin and Chateau de Sade

Bob was interviewing a blonde secretary in his study. Kevin entered the room, without knocking. He had a glass in his hand and mistook the blonde woman, who had her back to him, for me. He was aware that I was doing a university thesis on the Marguis de Sade at the time. Ghislaine, Bob’s youngest child was very naughty and received a lot of corporal punishment from her father. These incidents interested me, but not in an overtly perverse way. Indeed, they helped me with my thesis on the great French flagellator.

"Have a glass of wine," said Kevin, exuberantly. "Vintage Chateau de Sade!."

"Fuck off, Kevin!" said Bob.


Welcome to my Bath

I was doing an arduous translation job for a firm in Oxford, which meant it was necessary to work from 8.30am till 5.30pm. For a short period, namely three weeks, I shared a flat with an extremely selfish woman who prevented me from using the bathroom between the hours of 7.00 and 9.00 am. She is the daughter of an infamous public figure whose name I decline to give.

The Maxwells very kindly allowed me to go to their house early each weekday. I used Bob’s private, majestic bathroom, having obtained his permission to do so.

It was a cold, foggy morning. The time was 7.00 o’clock. I had a hangover and had slept badly because the woman I shared with had bleared a transistor radio for most of the night. I was extremely disorientated on arriving at Headington Hill Hall.

I was astounded on seeing Bob leaving the house at 7.00 o’clock, just as I was arriving. I thought it strange for a millionaire publisher to be leaving home at such an hour, and, because I was barely awake, I made the following utterly fatuous remark:

"Hullo! Fancy seeing you here!"

"I live here, don’t I?" said Bob


A Most Singular Encounter Between Mr Maxwell and Mr Brightwell

My father and I were sitting at the lunch table. We were talking about the proposed airport which would have made the whole of Buckinghamshire uninhabitable.

"To fight this airport, we need funds" he said. "So far we’ve received nothing in the way of money from Uncle Bob." (My father has always referred to him as `Uncle Bob’ in dry irony).

"I certainly don’t mind going over to see him, this afternoon," I said. "I’ll ask him for the money. I know he’ll pay if I ask him."

"Oh, so you’re as close as that, are you?" asked my father, suspiciously.

"No," I said. "I’ll ring him later and say I want to have tea with him. I know he’ll say `yes’. He’s a pretty easy sort of man. Once I get to his house, I’ll ask for the money. How much do you want me to ask him for?"

"Five thousand pounds." My father said, in the tone of voice of a man asking a waiter for a box of matches.

"Blimey! I don’t think he’ll give it to me but I’ll do my best."

"I must say, you’re a very good sport," said my father.

I left the room and picked up the ‘phone. I dialled Bob’s number.

"Bob, is that you?"

"Yes."

"I’m coming over to your house for tea, later this afternoon, if I may," I said very peremptorily. (I don’t have a particularly diplomatic manner and never have).

"Yes, of course, you can Missy. I’ll want you here at 4.30. Woe betide you if you’re late."

"I’m never late!"

"Goodbye." He said suddenly. I’ve heard it said that an odd person adapts quickly to another odd person.

I did not have a driving licence at the time which meant that I would have to be driven to Headington Hill Hall by my father’s rather frightening, fiery, moody chauffeur, Mr Brightwell.

Mr Brightwell took me down the sinuous heavily-ramped drive to Bob’s house.

"I understand you was only staying for tea", he said irritably. "I hope you won’t be long. I missed Dad’s Army last week and I ain’t missing it again."

I was in awe of this man. "I’ll certainly do my very best, Mr Brightwell," I said, timidly.

I saw several men standing, talking at the bottom of the drive, near the house. There were about ten of them. Although I knew Bob well, mostly through telephone contact, I have never been visually observant. The last time we’d met, it was dark. I hadn’t studied his facial features and didn’t recognise him. I went up to one of the men.

"Take me to Mr Robert Maxwell, please." I said, in the commanding tone I use when nervous.

The man gave me a strange look and did as I asked. I have always vacillated between exhibitionism and shyness. When wishing to hide shyness, I shout loudly and stare at the ground.

The weather was cold. Bob wore camel hair. The hot air from his mouth formed clouds in the March air. For some inexplicable reason, this turned me on.

"My father sent me here to ask you for five thousand pounds!" I said, my voice raised to a shout and my eyes still on the ground.

"Who is your father and what does he want the money for?" he asked. His response was peremptory but not anything like as arresting as my opening words.

"For the anti-airport campaign!"

I raised my head and saw his face. He had beautiful hazel eyes which stared in a baffled manner, from one of the most overpoweringly attractive faces I had ever seen, a radiant, masculine, almost god-like face. I couldn’t take my eyes off it and felt hypnotised like a fatuous twelve-year old girl. I became very giddy and feared I was going to fall over.

All I can remember is that I continued to stare at his eyes and couldn’t look at anything else. That was the last I saw before a light in my head was turned off.

I woke up in bed with a headache. I must have hit my head quite hard when I fell over. I think it must have happened very quickly, as he did not have time to stop me falling. The room was dark and the blinds were drawn. I felt sick for a while. I felt better when Betty came into the room with a tray of tea. She told me that Bob had said I’d been, to quote his own words, "taken f….ing ill," and that he’d suspected I’d been on some girl’s "bloody fasting fad".

"Do you remember why you fell over?" she asked, extremely sympathetically.

It would have been neither polite nor proper to reply, "You’re husband’s hypnotic sexuality mesmorised me and knocked me for six". I said,

"I sometimes get fainting attacks. I inherit this from my father. He often faints for no reason." (This is true. He does).

"Oh, how terribly unfortunate. How frightened your mother must be whenever she sees it happen!"

"Yes. She gets frightened all right." (Understatement)

Betty stayed for a while and talked to me in a very kind, friendly way. I can’t remember what we talked about. I longed to ask her what her husband was like as a lover. My thoughts turned to the peppery Mr Brightwell and his wish to watch Dad’s Army.

Betty left the room as Bob entered. He stood at the foot of the bed and looked at me from a height. I deliberately avoided eye contact with him.

"Well then, Missy, or Pussycat, or Basso Profundo, I don’t know which of these names is best. Why the hell were you ill like that, when you approached me?"

"I’m afraid I don’t know. I’m very worried. My father’s driver’s out there, waiting. He’ll be furious if he misses Dad’s Army."

"F…k him! He’ll have to wait."

We had a long conversation. I told him I had taught myself Russian. He went out and brought some Russian books into the room. He sat down and read a passage from Yevgeni Onegin aloud. I was very proud when he gave me the books as a present and signed them, adding the words With Admiration … In Friendship.

"That Dad’s Army man, waiting outside, what’s his bloody name?" he asked.

"Mr Brightwell."

"Mr Lightweight, did you say?"

I had a giggling fit.

"What’s so funny?" he asked

"I don’t know! I just don’t know!"

"You’re a bit batty, aren’t you? Get ready and you and I will go and see the fellow."

Mr Brightwell was sitting in my father’s car, chain-smoking and looking at photographs of naked woman. Apart from being short-tempered, he was also sex mad. In his younger days in my father’s employ, he often took local village girls to his garden shed while his wife paced up and down the kitchen, wringing her hands. "Pull yourself together, dear, he’ll soon come to heel!" my mother would bark at her tersely. Sometimes, this made her feel better, most times, she felt worse.

Bob clouded the whole of the driver’s window with his breath. He knocked heavily on the glass.

"You there, sitting in your vehicle looking at pictures of naked woman! What the hell’s that you’ve got in there?"

"Mind your own flippin business, sir!"

Mr Brightwell opened the window in a homicidal rage, made worse by Bob breathing over the window.

"You’re talking to the man who once groomed Lord Birkenhead’s voices*!" he bellowed.

"Bugger what you did to Lord Birkenhead’s f….king horses! I want you to come into my house for tea." He turned to me, "Christ, that driver of yours is a scary fellow! I wouldn’t want to meet him alone on a dark night."

We were on our way home. Bob had put the airport cheque into a sealed envelope. I will not say that he gave, only that it was less than five thousand pounds.

"Well, what do you think of Mr Maxwell, Mr Brightwell?" I asked.

Mr Brightwell rammed his foot onto the accelerator.

"No comment!" he barked.


"That Son of Ian Flemings should have been Horse whipped!"

Bob was interested in a story I told him about an incident during my childhood, when my parents took me to visit the house of the writer, Ian Fleming, in London. Our hostess was called Anne Fleming but I can hardly remember her.

The Flemings had an only child, a son called Caspar who was roughly my age. Caspar got into serious trouble with firearms and heroin, in early adulthood, and committed suicide. I only knew him when we were children.

The adults were having pre-lunch drinks. Caspar asked me to accompany him to the attic during this time and I obliged.

I soon realised this was a bad idea. Caspar was a very rough child, and was much stronger than me. He demanded that I play "games" with him.

The games started quite mildly. He asked me to romp on the floor and wrestle with him. He became excited and I was a bit frightened of him. He dragged me from the floor to my feet. He handed me a heavy, blunt object, possibly a poker, but I can’t remember.

"I want you to smash all these windows," he commanded.

"I can’t do that. I’d get into terrible trouble," I said.

"I live in this house, and if I tell you to do something, you do it," said Casper.

"I can’t, I won’t."

"If you don’t do as I say, I’ll knock you down and hurt you," he said.

I knew he was much stronger than me, and I had no wish to be ‘knocked down’.

"All right. I’ll do it," I said.

I broke all the windows with the instrument he had given me. I can’t deny I was stimulated by the sound of smashing glass.

The door to the attic swung open. I dropped the instrument and turned round. I remember seeing an imposing, intensely angry-looking man. He was looking me straight in the face.

"Who broke these windows?" shouted the man.

"She did, Daddy," said Casper.

"That’s not how it happened," I said. "Casper told me that, if I didn’t break these windows, he’d knock me down."

"Rubbish!" exclaimed the angry-looking man. "Get out of here and go downstairs."

I obeyed. As I left the attic, I heard no word of reprimand from father to son. He received no punishment at all. I, on the other hand, was made to learn the first ten verses of What was he doing, the great god, Pan…"

Bob listened a little brusquely to my self-pitying tale.

"You were silly to have gone up there. That son of Ian Fleming’s should have been horsewhipped!" he said.


Robert Maxwell and The Typhoid Injection

The time I fainted when asking Bob for money for the Anti-Airport fund, was not the first occasion I fainted when I was with him. Added to his extraordinary sexual magnetism, there was often a deep-rooted aura which radiated from his heart, and caused many woman to faint when they were near him.

Men tended to despise him and he despised other men. He appeared permanently hostile towards members of his own sex. Not so where woman were concerned. Not only did he like women; he was a magnet to them and an anathema to men, because of this, as well as his difficult personality.

The incident I am about to describe was embarrassing. It was a hot day and I had driven to Headington Hill Hall for lunch.

Betty was surprised by her husband’s lateness and she asked me to accompany her to the Pergamon offices to tell him lunch was ready.

He came out of the building while I was waiting outside with Betty, and his method of greeting me was so terribly friendly. He said to her, "Why didn’t you tell me Eleanor was coming? I would have been able to look forward to it!"

The remark was of such a lovely and generous nature that it numbed me. He was always very physical when he greeted me and said `goodbye’. Each time, he kissed me on the mouth, whether Betty, was there or not. I felt the same symptoms as before, and made the mistake of looking him in the eye. His eyes were hypnotic and locked me into a stare I could not break. Then came the giddiness and the knowledge I was going to fall.

When I came round, I failed to recognise either Bob or Betty. When a fainter first comes round, that person’s memory goes for a few minutes, and because he doesn’t know where he is, he is terrified.

I was lying on my back on the grass, just outside the Pergamon offices. Bob was kneeling down on the grass close to where my head was. He was shaking me by the shoulders.

Because I was lying and he was kneeling by my side, and my grip on reality was still absent, I assumed automatically that he was a doctor.

For some reason, I rolled up my sleeve and asked him to give me a typhoid injection.

I then noticed he was understandably not holding a syringe in his hand.

I soon knew where I was and who I was with. I was mortified with embarrassment. He continued to kneel on the grass. He leant over me, his lips about six inches from mine.

"You ill!" he said, confrontationally.

"No, I’m not!"

"I’ve seen you do this before, haven’t I?"

"Yes, I think you have."

"I’m getting extremely concerned about the kind of company you are keeping in London," he said.


Man’s Savage Inhumanity to Woman: Robert Maxwell and the Son of Kitty Masters

I had been working at St Bartholomew’s Hospital for five years. I was forced to leave shortly after Bob’s death.

I had been working in renal medicine under a perilously unattractive-looking consultant called Dr Larry Baker. He is the only son of the late singer, Kitty Masters whose photographs I saw in at least two newspapers, following her death in 1994.

She was a handsome-looking woman which surprised me. Her features appeared fine and angular in comparison with those of her son who looks like a weather-beaten old bull dog.

Larry Baker and I got on very well until Bob’s death. He invariably told me how good my work was. He made a few rather fresh remarks and would look at me in a pathetic, yearning sort of way, which gave me the impression that he had a crush on me.

As soon as he knew about my grief, following Bob’s death, he cut me dead. He turned from what appeared to be a gentle, appreciative, if rather sad man, to a cutting Mr Hyde. I was at my most vulnerable at this time but to ensure that all the work I did for him was devoid of flaw and blemish I worked late every evening.

He knew of my unhappiness but took every opportunity he could to flog me with rudeness and sarcasm. I was in too weak a psychological state to retaliate and bore each unkindness with a pleasant smile.

No explanation for his cruel behaviour is needed, but I will give one, all the same. He loved me and he could not bear the knowledge of the relationship between Bob and myself. The poor fellow with the face of a weather-beaten old bull-dog, was smitten with virulent jealousy.

He rounded up doctors, junior in rank than he, alongside administrators and secretaries. With their help, he dissected every one of my weaknesses and wrote a defamatory letter to the Head of Personnel. The wording of this letter is so unpleasant that I shall not record it in writing.

Each morning, I made coffee for him which I carried on a tray into his office, the door of which he usually left ajar, in anticipation of me coming in.

When I brought him his coffee one morning, he kicked the door in my face, causing me to drop the coffee and accompanying crockery.

At least, my dear, loyal friend, the late Dr Victor Ratner, stood up to him and spoke his angry thoughts aloud, for all to hear, at a conference about renal medicine, shortly before his extremely suspicious death in August 1993.

It only seems yesterday that I had a long conversation with one of Dr Ratner's patients, just after Bob had been drowned. I am not a heavy drinker but I had had a great deal to drink on this occasion. Dr Ratner’s patient, the late writer, Wolf Mankowitz, renowned for his witty biography of Edgar Allan Poe, struck me as being a very dry-tongued, dour but reasonably affable gentleman. I got a bit carried away and implied that there was a link between Poe’s works and necrophilia. Perhaps I pushed the matter a bit strongly.

Mr Mankowitz leant back uncomfortably against the dark oak paneling in Dr Ratner’s waiting room.

"Lady, quit the bottle and get some therapy!" he said.

The singer, Kitty Masters, had a kind face. Perhaps she was too kind to her only son. She must have spoilt him beyond oblivion. I often ask myself what she would have thought, if she had known that her son had persecuted a loyal, and industrious, grieving woman, and caused her misery for months, following his callous, devious deeds.


The Eccentricity of Dick Crossman

My parents were friendly with the late Dick Crossman, a prominent figure in the Labor Party. He lived in the country with his wife, precocious son, Patrick, and daughter, Virginia.

Patrick died at the age of fifteen. Some say he deliberately killed himself. Others say he experimented with a piece of rope, to gain physical excitement. He was found dead in the kitchen, a year after his father’s death.

Dick Crossman was a happy, hearty, jolly sort of fellow who was always laughing and joking. It was impossible not to like him. He was fond of Bob and spoke warmly of him.

It was a summer’s day. It was shortly after my seventeenth birthday. My parents took me to have lunch with the Crossmans.

Crossman’s swimming pool had just been dug out, painted and filled. He was unusually excited about this and wanted it to be officially "opened". He took same time to tie pink ribbon to the diving board, and metal step ladders at the deep and shallow end.

He approached me with what looked like a pair of gardening shears and asked me to cut the ribbon and make a formal opening speech, while his wife, son and daughter lined themselves up, staring vacantly at the water. Crossman said,

" I want you to make a speech. Don’t make a short, curt speech like the Queen, make a good, long, wordy speech."

Although I liked the man, I was beginning to think he was a brick short of a load, but I did as I was told. The shears were blunt. It took me a long time to cut the ribbon. Crossman waited, theatrically clearing his throat.

I started speaking, taking care to use a lot of long words and multi – claused sentences, to oblige my nutty but inofleusive host, I spoke very slowly.

"We are gathered together on this hot, pleasant, sunny, if somewhat breezy, summer’s day, to celebrate the completion and subsequent opening of this charming, aqua – marine – painted swimming pool," I began. Crossman cleared his throat, again. I ignored him. I continued,

"It nestles in the midst of somewhat picturesque, glorious, radiantly green countryside, adding, quite significantly to its charm, and it is evident that it has been strategically constructed at an extremely low altitude, to enable it to be free from prevailing easterly winds, which can cast a blight on the enjoyment of bathers, even during hot summer days.

"Although I have not yet had the honour of sampling its clear, rippling water, I would estimate that it is well over seven foot deep at the diving end, rendering the act of diving, safe and pleasurable.

"I also note the immaculate silver, chrome polish on the two step ladders, as well as the ladder leading to the diving board, which, like the pool, is painted an enchanting shade of glowing blue…"

Crossman interrupted me.

"All right, all right! I know I said, 'Don't make a short, curt speech like the Queen', but I had no idea you were going to go to an extreme like this."

I told Bob about the incident, while he leant back in a chair, chewing an unlit cigar.

"You had no business, allowing that man to make a fool of you, like that," he said.


Later that week, I went out to lunch by myself in an Italian restaurant. A rare November ray of sun shone through the window I was sitting by, warming my right ear and the right side of my face. The restaurant was empty which relieved me because I wanted to be alone, savouring the sun and thinking about Bob. I ordered chicken and peas and gin and tonic.

An unkempt parson strolled into the room and to my horror, he came to my table.

"Do you mind if I accompany you?"

This man had interrupted the only period of peace I'd had since Bob died. I hated the idea of someone imposing themselves on my solitude.

"Yes I mind very much" I said "Every other table here is free. Your clothing is off-putting and I passionately want to be alone. I am grieving."

The parson increased my awkwardness.

"If you give me that person's name, we can sit and pray together."

"You are harassing me." I shouted. "I am not religious and I specifically want to be alone. Piss off!"

The waiter came to the table. "I've brought your usual, Sir, steak, spinach and chips." My order came immediately afterwards.

"I'm going to say grace,"said the parson. "You don't mind, do you?"

"If you choose to indulge your eccentricities, I wish you'd go outside!"

The parson said grace. I ignored him. I picked up my chicken in my right hand, my left hand being out of order, and suddenly felt Bob's spirit within me. I ate the chicken in a bestial manner (as he sometimes did) and stretched right across the table to dip it in the sauce before eating it and wiped my mouth on the back of my hand.

"I must say I don't think much of your table manners, young lady." said the parson who suddenly looked as if he had AIDS.

"How the hell do you think John the Baptist ate his chicken in the wilderness?" I shouted.


The Rage of Marjorie Proops

After Bob's death, there was prurient speculation about women going to bed with him. Sometimes, I saw it in the press, sometimes on the television. This caused me agonising jealousy, sometimes logical, sometimes illogical. I also read that Bob frequently addressed Mrs Marjorie Proops, the Daily Mirror's Agony Aunt as "my darling little daughter".

I couldn't really imagine Bob taking this strange-looking woman to his bed, but my obsession was such that I was prepared to believe anything. A demon got into me and made me ring Mrs Proops at The Mirror. It was not difficult to find her.

Her voice was quite plummy. Her brogue could have been one of many London accents. Her initial telephone manner was fairly unfriendly. I came straight out with it.

"Mrs Proops - I must know - when Robert Maxwell kissed you, was it on the cheek or mouth?"

"Who in the world are you?"

I gave a false name. I said:- "I'm not being rude but I am possessed. I must know."

"You are being rude, bloody rude! What do you want? Robert Maxwell was a very affectionate man" she said.

My obsession was making me suffer, unendurably.

"When you say he was an 'affectionate man', does that mean he used to beckon you into a dark corner and put his hand between your legs?"

The Agony Aunt blew a gasket. "Your behaviour is absolutely outrageous!" she bellowed.

She hung up.


Extract 12

Robert Maxwell, the Irishman and the Bottle of Wine

I was often invited to stay with the Maxwell family on weekends nearest my birthday. I always sat on Bob's right. He was in a good mood on these occasions. Everyone was laughing and joking, but during lunch a family row broke out. Ghislaine was allowed home from her boarding school at weekends. She wanted to spend the whole of Sunday riding. Bob complained that Sunday was the only day he could see her.

Ghislaine reacted and told her father not to make such demands on her. Isabel, her sensible older sister, took her father's side and accused her of being inconsiderate. The boring exchange between the father and his daughters lasted for about ten minutes.

Bob became bored and turned to me.

'So it's your birthday, today, is it? What year were you born?'

I took three years off my age as any woman would.

'All right. I'm going down to the cellar to find a bottle of wine for that year. I bet you won't be able to drink all of it in one go.'

'I bet I will!'

He left the room and came back five minutes later with a dusty bottle of red wine, labelled what he took to be the year of my birth. He opened it and teasingly put it on his left, out of my reach. I saw this as being a game and I leant across him to get hold of the bottle.

'Don't be so impatient, Missy!' He gave me a smack on the back of my hand. 'You can't have the wine until you've finished your champagne.'

I drank the champagne and reached for the wine. He and I struggled with the bottle which he held in a vice-like grip.

'You promised I could have the bottle of wine after I'd finished my glass of champagne,' I said.

'All right, Basso Profundo. I bet you can't drink the whole bottle.'

'I bet I can!' I repeated.

I let him fill my glass to the brim, and drank it. He filled it up every time I drained it. I went on until the bottle was empty. I felt a bit nauseated, and lost all my inhibitions.

'Christ, you drank it!' said Bob.

'You never thought I would, did you?' I said.

'No, I can't say I did. Because it's your birthday, and you've achieved this extraordinary feat, I want you to stand up and make a speech.'

I stood up. 'No problem, Bob,' I said, 'but I'll have to hold on to the chair.'

'Never mind the chair. Just make a speech,' he commanded.

Tm now going to tell you a hilarious joke,' I said.

'Get on with it, then.'

'An Irishman went to a job centre. "Where did you last work?" they asked him.

'In a mortuary,' said the Irishman.

'Why did you leave?'

'I was fired,' said the Irishman.

'Why were you fired?'

'For bunging the corpses doon onto the slab, instead of layin' 'em gently, and after layin' 'em doon, for fockin' 'em from behoind.'

There was a silence. I looked at Ian, who was sitting on Bob's left. I looked at Bob whose appearance shocked me terribly. Mercifully, Betty did not understand the thick Irish accent I mimicked. Nor did Ghislaine. Bob turned green and was beginning to sweat. There was a mild tremor in his hands. I knew I'd made him ill but I couldn't remember exactly what I'd said.

He leant forward and with an effort, reached for a bell which he rang.

Oping, a sweet Filipino lady, who had worked for the Maxwells for many years, scurried into the room.

'You rang, Mr Maxwell?'

Bob clutched the table and rose to his feet.

'Mr Maxwell, are you all right?'

No answer.

'Mr Maxwell, do you need help?'

'I am going to my room, where I want some hot sweet tea,' he said in the voice of an out-of-work funeral director.

'Ian!' I said.

'Yes.'

'I'm afraid your father's been taken ill. He was OK a minute ago.'

'Yes, I know he was.'

'Have I upset him, in some way?' I ventured.

'Yes, you bloody well have'

'But why?'

'Don't you dare ever again talk to my Dad about necrophilia!' he shouted.

'Why not?' I asked, stupidly.

'Because it cracks him like a nut. He's just not up to hearing about it.'

'Oh, dear,' I said. 'Shall I go up to him and say sorry?'

Ian banged his forehead with his outstretched palm.

'No, no, please. Anything but that!'

'What's going on?' asked Betty, in a baffled tone. 'What's wrong with Papa, Ian?'

'Nothing. He's exhausted. He'll be fine.'

'Do you think he'll have forgotten what happened, once he's finished his rest, Ian?' I ventured.

'I should think so. The man's got other things on his mind, besides Irishmen screwing the dead,' said Ian.

I was not happy about what happened, but I was dared to drink the wine, and I have never said no to a dare.


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